


Similarities

by narsus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-27
Updated: 2010-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Similarities between brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Similarities

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat and obviously in the genesis of it all to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

There are days when John wonders what it would be like to live with someone who had dinner on the table and a kind word when he came home. Occasionally he fantasises about it on the commute home, but by the time he reaches Baker Street he's dismissed the idea. Today is no different. Except today there is actually something carefully spread across what would, if Sherlock hadn't always commandeered it, their dining table. Surveillance photographs don't constitute dinner but the plate with a toasted sandwich on does. It's evidently not meant for John but he takes a bite anyway, relishing the idea of annoying Sherlock in a petty fashion. He quickly regrets the impulse and forces himself to swallow the mouthful of cheese and Branston Pickle so that he doesn't spit it out onto the table.

"Have that if you want. I can make another one." Sherlock sweeps in through the doorway in an evidently charitable mood.   
"No thanks. What's this?" John gestures to the photographs.  
Sherlock picks up his sandwich and inclines his head, indicating that John should take a closer look.

Leaning over the table John peers down at the photographs in a casual fashion. He quickly deduces that they're all of the same man, though the difference in viewpoints, changes in clothing and location first suggest otherwise. The man looks so familiar that for a moment John can't place him, then Sherlock slides one photograph over to the edge of the table. John picks the photograph up and turns to stare at Sherlock in surprise.

"Mycroft?"  
Sherlock nods, chewing steadily.

The photograph, all the photographs, appear to be surveillance images of a younger Mycroft Holmes. John studies the photograph in his hand. The resemblance between the brothers is stark. The younger Mycroft doesn't have anything like the unruly hair of his brother, but he does have more of it and isn't yet sporting quite so obvious a receding hairline. Yet it's not the hair or lack there of that really catches John's attention. The photograph appears to have been taken on a path alongside a patch of greenery and possibly, from the shadows, from a security camera attached to an underpass. Mycroft appears to be walking briskly in the direction of the underpass, fast enough that his coat billows out around him. The coat is black, the scarf is burgundy and the suit is a black pinstripe but stylistically, it's not so very far removed from Sherlock's usual attire. The differences lie in the umbrella carried in one hand and the cigarette in the other. John has to remind himself that it's not so strange for brothers to have similar taste.

"You look similar."

Sherlock smiles thinly, eyes on the photograph, which is enough to convince John that there's something else that he's meant to see. Looking at the photograph again John is hard pressed to pick out whatever it is that Sherlock expects him to notice. He can guess that Mycroft's taste runs to the expensive like his brother's, that there's a touch of the dramatic about the way he strides purposefully along, but there has to be something else, something more that John has yet to notice.

"Well?"  
"Mycroft looks... good in black?"  
"Of course. Don't be dense."  
"He's got a thing for umbrellas?"  
"Props, John. He likes props."  
"Okay."  
"What else? Come on, look!"  
John sighs, exasperated. "I don't know."  
Sherlock gives him a withering look but says nothing.  
"Okay, fine. You've got the same dress sense. His coat's black: yours is grey. His scarf is red: yours is blue. You both wear black suits but his is pinstripe. He smokes but you use nicotine patches. Is that it?"

Sherlock abruptly turns away from John and carries his plate to the kitchen in a manner that suggests of wounded dignity. John looks back down at the photograph, then places it back on the table again. He's about to mentally start debating whether or not he'll be able to get away with just sitting down to watch the telly without Sherlock glowering at him when it suddenly strikes him: the Mycroft in all of the photographs is painfully thin.

"He... lost weight?"  
"He was damn near anorexic." Sherlock is back beside John again.  
"What?"  
"Wouldn't eat, barely slept. Kept going on cigarettes, coffee and cocaine."  
"He-"  
"At the start of his career of course. Wanted to prove that he could keep up with the big boys. Was taking several grams a week by the end of it."  
"What... what happened?"  
"His _handler_ had him forcibly put in a clinic. Very private, very discreet." Sherlock sneers. "Same damn place he put me in."  
"Sherlock..."  
It's hand-waved away casually. "I taunted him, you know. Told him _I'd_ never make the same stupid mistake. I was there three years later."  
John doesn't know what to say to any of that.  
Sherlock clenches his teeth.  
"Look-"  
"I can't let it happen again."  
"You-"  
"Mycroft. It's- I don't even know for certain. It's not like I have any proof but..."  
John lays a hand on Sherlock's arm, comfortingly. "I won't let him-"  
"It's not me!" Sherlock shrugs John's touch off angrily.  
"What? You think Mycroft is...?"  
"No proof." Sherlock wraps his arms around himself, deliberately not looking in John's direction. "But it's there, in the eyes. I can tell. He's- His whole career gone. Just like that! They'll hang him out to dry. He'll lose everything. I can't let that happen."

The role reversal is confusing in the extreme. Sherlock worrying for Mycroft and not the other way round.

"Can you... make him stop?"  
"I don't even know why he's started again."  
"Can you find out?"  
"Of course!"  
"Good. Good, then we can start there."  
Sherlock finally meets John's eyes. "Thank you."  
John nods.

Of course he'll help; it was obvious from the start. John can no more refuse to help Sherlock now than he could at any other time. Especially now when Sherlock seems so franticly worried about his brother's wellbeing. John's gaze falls to the photographs scattered across the table again and he fancies than in each and every one he can see the same feverishly bright intensity that often characterises Sherlock. In fact, from that perspective, he's not at all sure that the problem is going to be the cocaine.


End file.
